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Tony Abbott out of line with stance on religion in schools

Tony Abbott's attempts to impose his religious ideology on the secular state are fundamentally at odds with modern democracy Photo: Andrew Meares

How on earth can a chaplain be "'non-judgmental" and support all students regardless of their "worldview" ("PM renews push to resist secular input in revised chaplaincy plan", August 28). On the contrary, each of them makes a pre-emptive public pronouncement of their judgment when they declare themselves for their religion. And they are the embodiment of a particular religious worldview.

The mere fact that the National School Chaplaincy Association needs to make these claims alerts us to the weakness of their argument: if they were secular workers the issue would not exist.

Tony Abbott's attempts to impose his religious ideology on the secular state are fundamentally at odds with modern democracy. This is very troubling.

Illustration: Cathy Wilcox

Carol Witt Boronia Park

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Tony Abbott's renewed chaplaincy plan is flawed and a waste of taxpayer money. Religious schools already have their own people and don't need chaplains, but could use the money. Chaplains shouldn't be part of secular state schools. I agree with the president of the Australian Education Union, that Abbott's chaplaincy scheme would "undermine the secular traditions of public education".

States have professional counsellors who have university degrees to perform the role that chaplains are meant to perform. If chaplains are forbidden to proselytise, what additional counselling are they offering students? Is it spiritual consolation for bereavement or spiritual hope in adversity? Either way they would be teaching superstition without parental consent. Parents should have a real choice in the matter, and this should consist of a signed permission in which they agree to have their child counselled by a chaplain. It should not be "permission by parent omission to say no", which is the way SRE currently operates in NSW state schools.

Geoff Black Caves Beach

So "Tony Abbott [is] to keep secular workers out of school chaplaincy program". Though I am a Christian, I find this quite appalling. However, nor am I an advocate of the qualification "secular". Why can't we just have fully qualified school counsellors, whether they are Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, atheists or wear a hijab? All of them, presumably, would promise not to proselytise, including the atheists.

Norman Young Cooranbong

Perhaps Tony Abbott and his colleagues could get a young child to explain to them that section 116 of our constitution clearly prohibits a religious test "for any office under the commonwealth". Restricting the National School Chaplaincy program to only religious chaplains is a clear violation of both the spirit and the letter of the constitution.

Principals should have the autonomy to decide what is best for their schools, and not be forced to allow well-meaning but misguided volunteers to replace properly trained and qualified teachers and counsellors.

The very essence of our compulsory, free, and secular public school system is its inclusive and non-discriminatory values, which are often at odds with the beliefs of organisations such as Generate Ministries or ACCESS Ministries, which supply the majority of chaplains in NSW and Victoria.

Not only should no religious test apply for this scheme, but it should be abandoned in favour of fully trained youth counsellors and more resources for teachers and principals.

Peter Rowney Lemon Tree Passage

The philosopher John Anderson said in a 1943 talk on the subject of religion in education that there was no religion in education as education is about inquiry and religion is about that which must not be inquired into. According to your report, the Abbott government intends to restore the obligation for all school chaplains to represent a particular religion. This keeps the door open for fundamentalist fanatics such as Hillsong and clergy of the Anglican Archdiocese of Sydney while excluding people who have been trained in counselling children. Another retrograde step by our federal government.

Ian Edwards Glebe

In our school we have a wonderful qualified secular youth worker who works closely with students who need extra guidance, interest, support and compassion. He will lose his job , and his very positive connection with those students, should the government persist with its religious chaplaincy obsession. Trust the High Court, Tony Abbott. Its democratic decision speaks for the entire community, not just a few.

Mark Slocum Dulwich Hill

Free education only hope of students from poor families

I heard with some disbelief the Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, say on Thursday on ABC radio that the university funding reforms introduced by the Whitlam government were of no real consequence, and just resulted in allowing middle-class Australians to attend university for free, having no effect at all on the mix of people achieving university education.

I don't know where Mr Pyne obtained that information. However, it contradicts my lived experience and that of my sisters and many of my friends. My family were truly "working poor": our parents were farmers making a precarious living from Bilpin fruit orchards during the 1960s and '70s. Without the free university education introduced by Whitlam, none of my family would have been within cooee of a university.

Mr Pyne and other government ministers may well have been among the middle-class Australians who benefited from the Whitlam reforms. I and many other Australians were not, and we thank the Whitlam Government every day for the opportunity to get an education and a career.

It is a shame that fewer young Australians will be able to have this opportunity without incurring ever increasing debt in the future.

Denise Newton Hazelbrook

Qantas' conduct simply doesn't fly

Qantas might have lost $2.8 billion dollars but no doubt the management gave themselves huge bonuses again ("Qantas posts 'confronting' $2.8b loss after hefty writedowns", smh.com.au, August 28).

Robert Clayton Mallanganee

Thank you Nick Xenophon for your timely article on Qantas ("Who clipped the wings of our national carrier?", August 28). Alan Joyce has a lot to answer for and so do those who have kept him in his job since 2008.

I have met a small number of Qantas workers who have lost their jobs or been made redundant. They were in highly skilled sections of Qantas (and most not union members) and terribly loyal to Qantas and what it stood for as our national airline. The years of experience of these people has been lost to the airline and some are still looking for work or have taken a much lower status position somewhere to try and keep their retirement money together.

Meanwhile Alan Joyce blunders on with seemingly failed solution after failed solution and yet still convinces the big end of town he has all the answers. His track record does not demonstrate this and I feel sorry for those workers who have lost their positions and the small time investors who are seeing their investment dwindle. Many Australians have lost that great loyalty they had for Qantas.

Ken Pares Forster

Gas to green options

While the gas company executives crow in delight at the imminent gouging of Australians on their future gas bills, consumers are given yet another reason to invest in renewable energy sources such as solar panels installed on their homes (Letters, August 28). It is ironic that is the because of corporate greed and ministerial incompetence that these alternatives are becoming more cost effective by the day.

Anthony van den Broek Erskineville

Is Keating equipped to mock Hawke?

Paul Keating's disparaging comments regarding Bob Hawke's appendage is just jealousy ("Swordsman Bob won't be drawn by Keating's unholy cuts", August 28). Hawke had a robust reputation for womanising, and perhaps Keating should heed the saying, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog". Maybe he, Keating, missed out.

David Hilliard East Gresford

Blame the cold Canberra weather.

Mary Anne Hingerty Clovelly

Tree killing folly

It is refreshing to hear an ethical arborist, even one who has been paid by the Department of Education, speak out against the absurd money wasting and indiscriminate tree removal scheme in NSW schools ("5000 trees axed since child killed by branch", August 28). The statistical risk of children dying as a result of a playground tree fall is just one in 30 million student years, yet we know that children are regularly struck down by motorists just outside school gates. So instead of this insane $13 million tree killing folly, our attention should be devoted to this real and ever present risk.

Only 6 per cent of the original Cumberland Plain forests that once covered most of what is now urban Sydney remain. Knee jerk hysteria has driven unnecessary action, and the consequence is irreparable damage. Gone along with the lost trees, is the opportunity to teach students and their parents that we should always treat nature with wary respect, and foster in them a complementary appreciation of the richness it brings to our lives. If you can't do that in schools, nature is truly doomed.

Sharyn Cullis Oatley

Why give the child a gun?

The fact that an instructor at an Arizona firing range was killed by a Uzi sub-machinegun being handled by a nine year old girl is an indictment on America's "right to bear arms" debate ("Nine-year-old kills instructor with Uzi sub-machinegun", August 28). The subsequent comment by a firearms safety expert that "You can't give a nine year old an Uzi and expect her to control it" shows just how blase Americans seem to be about guns and people. Why in their right mind would anyone give a child (or in fact an adult) such a powerful weapon anywhere and in any circumstances? Now she has to live with the horror of that incident for the rest of her life.

Peter Baker Smiths Lake

If in doubt, go to war

Down in the polls? Then start beating the drums of war and introducing fear into the population that is always a great way of taking the mug punters attention away from the real problems that confront us ("Terror hits home", August 28). And the icing on the cake is following the US into a misadventure of its making. That always works a treat, Tony Abbott.

Dallas Fraser Mudgeeraba (Qld)

Climate of ignorance

Are we to boil slowly like the frog who doesn't realise how hot the water in the pot has become ("Global warming will make cooling periods 'a thing of the past' ", August 28). A cooling phase over the past decade – due to oceans absorbing more heat – has had sceptic leaners chortling. Now we face a period of increased greenhouse gas emissions, in part from livestock and land clearing, due to the demand for meat by rising urban populations.

Climate scientists are the true lifters here, painstakingly continuing their research for Team Australia. Meanwhile Captain Tony Abbot and his well fed and watered mates continue to hoe into their T-bone steaks.

Words that are hollow

I watched Utopia on ABC TV on Wednesday and when I opened the Herald on Thursday, there was Les Wielinga channelling "Nation Building Authority" supremo Rob Sitch ("New body given job of 'strategic vision' for the harbour", August 28). The spin is all there: "high-powered committee", "multi-agency body", "overarching plan", "clear vision for the future". No doubt "world-class" and "global city" are in the document too.

We have seen all this before with the Barangaroo Delivery Authority and we can be sure that it's just a Pru Goward plot to turn the Bays Precinct into Hong Kong on 80 hectares.

Gavin Gatenby Co-Convenor, EcoTransit Sydney, Turrella

Amazing oversight

What I do not understand about these Liberal MPs who had significant funds added to their election treasury, did no one notice they ran expensive campaigns ("Another Liberal MP stands aside", August 28)?